The rangers posted some photos from angles most visitors are not allowed to view the gun from:

This allows reading of the markings:

“B.H.” for ordnance inspector Benjamin Huger, a Charleston native. Huger resigned from the U.S. Army at the beginning of the war and later became a Major-General in the Confederate army.

As mentioned in the earlier post on the cannon’s history, this was originally a smoothbore 8-inch Columbiad. Specifically No. 89 in West Point Foundary’s production lot of that type. It was completed to the “New Columbiad” pattern in 1857.

As a “New Columbiad” it retained the ratchet elevation mechanism.

This gun is one of only two surviving 8-inch “New Columbiads” from pre-war production. What makes it even more interesting is the wartime conversion and subsequent operational history as part of the force defending Sullivans Island.

Not far from where it sits today, with that nice, new coat of paint.

And I bring this gun up because it’s time to consider it’s larger brother: